Denmark — Backgrounds
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LIBER Manuscript Librarians Group Manuscript Librarians Group Denmark — Backgrounds Ivan Boserup (Royal Library, Copenhagen) Contents: Det Kongelige Bibliotek, Copenhagen (collection history; major collections; catalogues and digitisation; other collections). — Statsbibliotekets Håndskriftsamling, Aarhus. — Danmarks Kunstbibliotek, Copenhagen. — Dansk Folkemindesamling, Copenhagen. — Den Arnamagnæanske Samling, Copenhagen. — Karen Brahes Bibliotek, Odense. — Statens Arkiver, Copenhagen. — Det Danske Udvandrerarkiv, Aalborg. — Arbejderbevægelsens Arkiv, Copenhagen. — Arktisk Instituts Arkiv, Copenhagen. — Kvindehistorisk Samling, Aarhus. — Niels Bohr Arkivet, Copenhagen. — Nationalmuseet, Copenhagen. — Thorvaldsens Museum, Copenhagen. Det Kongelige Bibliotek, Copenhagen (collection history) 1. The Royal Library was founded by King Frederik III (1609-1670) in the 1650s by merging his private library with that inherited from his predecessors, and in particular by acquiring four important private libraries, The Bibliotheca Regia in the Castle of Copenhagen in his time housed more than 100 manuscripts, and was confirmed as National Library in the Danish Legal Deposit Law of 1697. Booty of war and acquisitions of whole manuscript collections from private scholars and collectors characterise the early 18th century. The Great Fire of Copenhagen, which spared the Royal Library and the Royal Archives, but annihilated the University Library, marks an intensification of manuscript acquisitions both in the private and in the public sphere. Besides important Icelandic codices, all the Danish medieval sources collected over the years by successive specially appointed Royal Historiographers were destroyed. New manuscript collections were established for the University Library, largely through private donations, but daring auction purchases and acquisitions of whole manuscript collections were also made, both privately and by the state. 2. The Collectio Regia or Old Royal Collection of manuscripts had grown to ca. 3,500 items when in 1785 the Thott Collection of the wealthy Count Otto Thott (1703-85) was bequeathed to the King (4,000 items), followed in 1796 by the acquisition of the collection of the prolific author and historian P.F. Suhm (3,000 items). It became the nucleus of the Royal Library’s third main manuscript collection, i.e. the rapidly expanding New Royal Collection, which was only closed in 1990. National Backgrounds / Denmark (11.5.2010) 1 LIBER Manuscript Librarians Group 3. Collections acquired during the 19th century (Uldall’s Samling; Kalls’s Samling) are mostly focused on Danish history, while those acquired during the 20th century reflect the increasing popularity, in the wane of Romanticism, of the collecting of autographs (letters and literary manuscripts). 4. Economic factors, both in the private and public domain, triggered in 1927 the acquisition of the rediscovered and historically important Ledreborg Collection, and in 1938 the transfer to the Royal Library of all the manuscript collections in the University Library of Copenhagen (3,000 items). 5. In the 19th and 20th centuries acquisitions have mostly been in the form of personal archives of authors, artists, scientists, and other persons involved in cultural activities in Denmark. The Manuscript Department today holds c. 35,000 manuscripts and archival units of very varying extent, and more than one million letters. 6. Largely intact after 350 years, the unity of the original Royal collections has nonetheless suffered through a number of transfers. In 1835, the Royal Collection of Graphic Art (Kobberstiksamlingen) was transferred from the Royal Library to the National Gallery of Denmark, and in the late 19th century, by virtue of a law of 1888, all documents in The Royal Library and in the University Library that could be considered to be ‘public records’ were transferred to the Danish National Archives. The Manuscript Department was established as a separate unit c. 1900. At the same time, manuscript maps, musical scores, and oriental manuscripts were relocated in respective special departments. In 1932, with the last massive manuscript acquisition to date, all Hebrew and Jiddish manuscripts were relocated in a Judaica Department, today a section within the Department of Orientalia and Judaica. Finally, in 1971-79, following-up on a law passed in 1965 and a Danish-Icelandic treaty of 1971, 141 codices of demonstrably Icelandic origin were transferred from the Royal Library to the University of Iceland, together with roughly half of the total of the c. 3,000 items of the Arnamagnæan Collection of Icelandic manuscripts, which had been bequeathed to the University of Copenhagen by the Icelander, Professor of Nordic antiquities Arni Magnusson (1663-1730). Det Kongelige Bibliotek, Copenhagen (major collections) Gammel Kongelig Samling (GKS; Old Royal Collection; Collectio Regia / Codices Regii). Expanding c. 1650-1784. The Latin catalogue (of which an extract was published 1786) describes in detail 3,587 items, western as well as oriental, arranged by format and by subject matter. — 1. Frederik III’s library included c. 15 Icelandic parchment codices including the 13th- century Codex Regius of the Elder Edda and the 14th-century Flatejyarbók, and a description of Greenland from c. 1600 with map and sailing instructions. Furthermore, the illuminated Norwegian Hardenberg law codex (c. 1300), the observation protocols of the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, the “Copenhagen Wulfstan collection” produced in England c. 1000, the only known witness (France, early 14th century) of the Chronique of the French crusader Robert de Clari (c. 1200), and a handful of 15th century codices of Latin classical authors. Undocumented, but probable is the presence in Frederik III’s library of the autograph illustrated manuscript of the Nueva corónica y buen gobierno of the Andean Indian Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala (1615), rediscovered in 1908 and inscribed in 2007 on UNECSO’s Memory of the World Register. Besides, three Arabic codices of the Koran, of which at least two were gifts to King Frederic from the renowned orientalist Theodor Petræus (d. 1673). National Backgrounds / Denmark (11.5.2010) 2 LIBER Manuscript Librarians Group — 2. Frederik III’s son and successor Christian V was not interested in books, but received as a gift in 1692 a 12th-century codex of Justinus’s abbreviation of the Historiæ of Trogus Pompeius, which had been owned by the mighty archbishop Absalon of Lund (died 1201), who according to his will had lent it to Saxo Gammaticus, author of Denmark’s national historiography, the Gesta danorum, ca. 1200. As a gift in 1698, from the linguist and Parish Minister Peder Syv (Petrus Septimius, 1631-1702), was also acquired the superbly illuminated Christina Psalter (Paris, c. 1230). — 3. The Great Nordic War 1700-20, which politically ended in status quo, resulted on the Danish side in some important booty of war. Approximately 80 manuscripts of Swedish origin came as part of the library of the Coyet family, seized by Danish troops operating in Southern Sweden in 1710. More important, in the Southern part of the Danish-Norwegian double monarchy, where the duke of Schleswig-Holstein had sided with Sweden and thus committed high treason, Gottorp Castle was occupied in 1713 and all its rich treasures taken as booty of war, including the ducal library with its collection of c. 350 manuscripts. Among these were the 4 bifolia of a 9th-century codex of Lucretius’ De rerum naturæ (the Schedæ Gottorpienses of modern critical editions), as well as a complete Carolingian codex of the ancient Latin translation of the Jewish Antiquities of Flavius Josephus. Many manuscripts of alchemistic contents, and much material regarding the history and administration of the duchies of Schleswig-Holstein, came to the Royal Library with the booty from Gottorp. — 4. A comparable number of manuscripts, but regarding European history, including hundreds of Italian and Spanish documents, were part of the library of the Professor of Law Christian Reitzer (1665-1736), acquired by the Crown in 1721. Reitzer’s library also included all the manuscripts and collectanea of the learned historian Otto Sperling the Younger (1634-1715), a specialist in numismatics, the history of Hamburg, and the history of learning. — 5. In 1732, before they were to be auctioned, the Royal Librarian Hans Gram (1685- 1748) acquired en bloc 242 Hebrew, Greek and Latin manuscripts, nearly all formerly belonging to Frederik Rostgaard (1671-1745). Many of the Greek codices had been acquired by him in Venice in 1699 and are traceable to the monastery of San Niccolò and beyond this to the Venetian humanist Urbano da Belluno (died 1524). Other massive acquisitions include, in 1749, c. 340 manuscripts left by Hans Gram, among them numerous learned correspondence besides material on Nordic history. In 1784, 20 parchment codices were bought at the auction of the library of the Cathedral chapter of Hamburg, including the giant Latin Hamburg-bible in 3 volumes (1255) with unique illuminations showing the main stages of medieval book production. Thott’ske Samling (Thott Collection). Donated 1785. The catalogue, published in 1795, short-lists 4,154 western manuscripts arranged by format and subject matter. — 1. Kept as a separate collection as stipulated by the donor, this collection includes c. 400 parchment codices, many of them illuminated and representing French, Flemish, Burgundian, English, Italian, and German medieval art and book